Electricians? Need fast answer

Factual Questions
1

We’ve been having intermitten power outages, where half the circuits in the house lose power.

We had the electric company in, and they say the problem is not in their wiring, that is, things are okay to the top of the garage. The service guy was very helpful, pointed out that the ???something box that the electric meter plugged into was original to the house (circa 1962) and very corroded and needed to be replaced. He said the box thing should be around $40 plus labor. Fine.

We called in an electrician today, and he says not only should that be replaced, but the fuse box inside the garage (same age) needs to be replaced.

Estimate: $1700. <GULP>

Possible factors that might affect price: Guy estimates it will be a full day job for him. We’re located in a suburb of Boston. It’s 100 amp service.

Question: Does that seem like a reasonable price, or should I pursue other estimates? (Given that we are currently without power in the bedroom, and we have a holiday weekend coming up, we’d rather not have it take longer if the price in the end will be the same.)

Question: Roughly how much more would it cost to have it upgraded to 200 at this time? We were thinking of having that done…sometime…

Thanks for any answers.

2

IANA electrician, but speaking as another consumer…I’ve had a couple bad experiences in the past with both electricians and plumbers who correctly sensed desperation and who quoted me prices for a borderline emergency repair (i.e. it did need to be fixed soon, but not “right now! Or we’re all gonna die!”) that I found out much later should have cost 30% less. If I hadn’t seemed so anxious to have the work done, if I could have projected more of a “eh, I think I’ll get some more estimates, it can wait”, I could have saved some money.

If it was me, I’d tough it out with fans for a week or so, and pursue some additional estimates.

And just off the top of my head, $1700 seems high for replacing two box thingies. If the guy sez it’ll take him all day, and assuming an 8-hour workday, that means he’s earning $212.50 an hour. Which seems steep even by Boston-suburb IBEW standards.

And I don’t see how hooking up a 100 amp line should be more expensive than hooking up a 200 amp line. But then, I’m not the one earning $212 an hour as an electrician, so what do I know.

3

To be fair, he’s probably not being paid $212 an hour. There’s overhead, even if he’s not an employee.

In my previous house I upgrade from 60 amps to 100 amps, and moved the service entrance for $900, including materials. It took two guys all day. That was in the year 2000.

4

Many things to consider. Your problem could be owing to a poor connection at the meter can, or at the main connection of the fuseboard. If the connection in the meter can is corroded, it’s likely owing to deterioration of the SE cable outer sheath, which has allowed water to enter the can and corrode the lug(s).

You could opt to just replace the meter can, and if necessary, the SE cable, but if a plan to upgrade to 200A service is in the works, it is better to coordinate the whole upgrade and do it in one visit.

$1700 doesn’t sound out of line. If I were bidding the job, my price would include new SE cable, new 200A meter can, new 200A main breaker panelboard with main and branch breakers, AFCI breakers where required by the 2008 NEC, GFCI where required by Code, bubble covers on exterior receptacles, installation of a driven ground rod if one is absent, and verification/installation of proper bonding/grounding conductors on municipal water and gas lines, with a tie point for telco and CATV. Any permit required by the municipality would be included, as well as an independent Underwriter’s inspection and seal for the finished work.

The existing meter can or fuseboard might not be in a permissible location, requiring relocation, a branch circuit junction box, and a host of other maybes. I’ve done service for a bit under that price, and have done them for double that price. It all depends on the variable factors which no one can accurately ascertain from a message board post. :wink:

Good luck

5

Thank you very much for taking the trouble to reply so thoroughly, it was reassuring AND gave me useful advice to check into with the electrician, to be sure whatever was needed to be done, would be done.

I also talked with a coworker who had his fuse box replaced about a year ago, and called another electrician and asked for just a ‘ball park’ figure for what he might charge – and the amounts were all within a two hundred buck range so…

Anyway, I gave the guy the go ahead, and he’s supposed to be here in fifteen minutes.
Hey, it’s only money, right? And without electricity, how could I read this board? :slight_smile:

6

Oh dear. I would have suggested you get someone in to do a proper - and paid - inspection of your entire electrics on the basis that they’re not quoting for the work and then get other electricians to quote for the work.

7

Not necessary, electricians are the best to do this anyway. Home inspectors sometimes/often don’t their ass from you know what.
Having said that, IAAE. I don’t like stating that, but I think in this case it merits the claim.

Danceswithcats pretty much nailed it (except you need two ground rods, not one these days).

OP,
Can you q I wouldn’t go with the upgrade to a 200 amp service,

8

Ignore post 7, don’t know where that came from!!

Not necessary, electricians are the best to do this anyway. Home inspectors sometimes/often don’t their ass from you know what.
Having said that, IAAE - Local Union 494 IBEW. I don’t like stating that, but I think in this case it merits the claim.

Danceswithcats pretty much nailed it (except I think you need two ground rods, not one these days - unless something changed in the latest code which we haven’t adapted here yet).

OP,
Can you quickly take some before pictures and then post the after pics when the electrician if finished??
This could make for an interesting thread if you indeed think you’re overpaying for work done.
I wouldn’t go with the upgrade to a 200 amp service, you don’t need it. Unless you’ve got a hot-tub, a welder in the garage and an electric range, cooktop, AC, and an electric dryer and 8 people living in the house. 200 amp services are oversold and unnecessary most of the time.
You’ll do well with a 24-30 circuit 100 amp panel.
I’m guessing that the meter socket is shot, sometimes the terminals on those things get very corroded and you can loose the connection on one of the main legs coming into the panel.
I have successfully repaired them in the past, sometimes it’s just excess corrosion on the aluminum wiring (which can be brushed off) or a loose or stripped screw (both of which can usually be repaired). Then an application of Pentrox (to stop further corrosion and keep the terminal free of moisture would be applied.

Depending on how the thing is piped or attached to the house this could be a time-consuming job to replace. If there is conduit coming into the top and conduit leaving the bottom of the meter socket it’s a pain in the ass to replace. The new sockets don’t exactly match the old ones. They do make conduit fittings that will help with the adaption and he may have to cut one or both conduits to make it happen or replace them.

–Also, the power coming into the meter socket has to be cut off by the Power Company (ideally, although I’ve cut the mains on the overhead before - dauntingly) and the overhead lines removed from the weatherhead and mast.
–The wiring going from the meter socket into the garage will have to be replaced also.
–They’re should be a light fixture adjacent to the new panel in the garage (if there isn’t one there now he should add one - a simple pull-chain will do) and also a GFCI outlet adjacent to the panel (mostly for the benefit of new construction work, but still required by the code).
–Grounding should be done properly, you should have two new ground rods bonded to the panel and a ground wire going from the panel to the location where the main water supply comes into the house and you must jumper out the water meter with grounding clamps (the ground wire must be continuous and not spliced).
–There must be three feet of clearance in front of the new panel, from the floor to the ceiling.
–There can be many other things to consider depending on the construct of the house and distances to and fro.

If I did the work, generally the cost to replace a meter socket (and possibly the SE cables and or coduit) and replacing the main panel would run about $1,000 or less. It’s about an 8 hour job for one guy and the parts alone will run about $350-$500.
Again, without looking at your house it’s impossible to nail down an exact amount.
If the work is done through a contractor then you can add half again that much, so about $1,500 or so

I hope you read this in time to take some photos! :wink:

9

Who said anything about home inspectors? I think we call those surveyors over here and I’d agree with you. The point is to get one professional to tell you what needs doing, and because he’s not going to get the job of doing it, he’s not going to pad it. With his work you can then get competitive quotes from other electricians.

Still, it’s all moot now.

10

I’m in the trade (electrician) and I can’t think of anyone (around here) that I’d want offering advice on a job like this other than a fellow electrician, that’s all. The only other people that come close are home inspectors.

11

Sorry – the electricians arrived and had the power off about 2 minutes after my prior post. So no before pictures. As for after… it looks like a gray metal box on the garage wall, pretty much like every other electrical guts box I’ve ever seen. :wink:

How do I put this – it’s not so much I thought I was overpaying, as that I was surprised at how much it cost. If you get the difference. The thing is, the only other electric work I’ve ever had to hire was to have a, uh, heavy duty? line w/outlet put into a convenient location when we got an electric dryer. (Done by the same guy, btw) so I had no experience to judge by. Now that I’ve had confirmation from two others that they paid similar amounts AND another electrician gave us a ballpark estimate that was in line … I’m okay with the price.

Basically, if the situation was, if we called around we might have found someone who would have done the job for a couple hundred less, well, we can live with giving that up. The convenience of getting the job done fast, and so far as I can tell, right, was worth the difference. We just didn’t want to be paying 100% too much or anything like that.

Vincent (I’m tired of calling him the ‘electrician guy’) said basically the same thing when I’d asked him about the upgrade. Which I think is a good sign that he wasn’t out to take total advantage of us, since he could have said “Sure” and upped the job.

That’s what we got. Which is a small upgrade, apparently what we had was 60 amp. The Electric Company repairman had already told us the meter socket was bad, bad, bad. So bad he said he probably should have cut off power to our house then and there and reported it as a hazardous situation to something or other. That guy didn’t look at the panel in the garage, but given that it was 45 plus years old, I don’t find it hard to believe that it was bad, too.
All the other stuff you listed – all new from the top of the garage, the two ground rods, the jumpering the water meter, all that stuff got done.

So far, I’m pleased with this guy’s work. I called him Monday afternoon, he swung by to look at the job within an hour or two. I called back about 9pm to give the go ahead. He’d offered to rearrange the timing of some smaller jobs to take care of us Tuesday if we wanted, saying they’d get there between 7:45 and 8:a.m.

They arrived at 7:47 – him, his son, and an apprentice. By noon it was all done. (I guess the ‘all day’ he’d said it would take would be for one man working alone.)

So, less than 24 hours from first call to problem to all fixed. And he gave us a definite time slot and kept his word. Very nice that last, when you often have to take time off from work and hang around all day waiting for a serviceman who says he’ll be there ‘sometime Wednesday’ and never makes it at all. :mad:
“Funny” coda. Last night we again had thunderstorms (about the sixth day in a row) and when I heard the first boom is said “Wouldn’t it be ironic if we had a power failure” due to the storm, seeing as we’d been without power for 12 hours on Saturday and most of the day Monday due to this problem.

Two minutes later the power went out. :eek:

And came on. And went out. And back on. In all, the power failed six times between 7:45 and 8:10, but only about 90 seconds of no power in total. Yes, not just us, it was happening in the neighbors, too, and we could hear that nasty hum of the transformers being overloaded.

12

Looking through Article 250, at 250.53(G) Rod and Pipe Electrodes., 8’ of soil contact is mentioned, but the electrode is spoken of in the singular sense. At 250.56 Resistance of Rod, Pipe, and Plate Electrodes., A single electrode consisting of a rod, pipe, or plate that does not have a resistance to ground of 25 ohms or less shall be augmented by one additional electrode of any of the types specified by 250.52(A)(4) through (A)(8).

From the above, I presume that, based upon knowledge of local soils, it is customary in your area to place a second electrode, rather than getting out the Megger and checking the quality of the first. This is not unlike my surprise when doing my first service in MetEd GPU territory and being told to remove the gas bonding jumper. MetEd doesn’t use dielectric unions inside the dwelling to isolate underground buried piping, unlike PECo Energy services, where gas was always bonded.

13

Yes, I stand corrected. It is a Wi State code issue that makes us install two ground rods per service.
I’ve been doing it for so long I falsely assumed it was in the NEC.

Also, StarvingbutStrong, I’m glad you had a good experience with your contractor and it sounds like they treated you right.

14

I’m here too late to be of practical help, but I’ll throw out a couple of thoughts that may be of comfort.

Do you know if the old breaker panel was made by Federal Pacific? If so, replacement was virtually mandatory since that make is notorious for failing to do its job.

But I suppose that doesn’t matter if you had just 60 amp service. That’s simply inadequate these days. It isn’t enough to handle an electric stove and and electric clothes dryer and central air conditioning (or electric heating) plus the usual stuff.

15

That’s cool. That’s how we all learn. Are you a member of your local IAEI chapter?

16

No, I work for a licensed union contractor and they’re a member of NECA and probably a couple other groups. :wink: